Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a technique related thereto.
Related Art
As image forming apparatuses take on more and more functions year after year, the number of buttons (function buttons) for setting the functions of an image forming apparatus is also increasing. For this reason, it is difficult to display all function buttons corresponding to all functions on the operation panel unit (display unit) of an image forming apparatus.
Meanwhile, there is a technique for classifying a large number of function buttons into a plurality of function groups and switching among and displaying a plurality of tab screens (tab screens for the respective function groups), each including function buttons belonging to each function group (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-290660). With such a tab screen switching technique, however, a plurality of function buttons that span different function groups are presented in different tab screens, and thus it is difficult to get an overview of all of a large number of function buttons.
To address the problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-193405, for example, discloses a technique in which, among a plurality of function buttons arranged in a predetermined direction, some function buttons specified by the user are displayed in a function button display area on the display unit. The function buttons displayed in the function button display area can be changed by a scroll operation by the user.
To be more specific, with the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-193405, a setting screen that includes an icon display area and a function button display area is displayed on the display unit of the image forming apparatus.
In the icon display area, a plurality of icons corresponding to a plurality of function buttons for setting each function are horizontally arranged and displayed. The icons are displayed classified into a plurality of function groups (specifically, collected in the function groups). The icon display area is provided with a slider for selecting some icons in the icon display area. Some of the icons displayed in the icon display area are specified through a user operation using the slider. To be specific, the slider includes a frame body (range specification frame) of a predetermined width that moves along with the movement of the slider, and icons that are enclosed with the range specification frame after the movement of the slider are regarded as the specified icons.
The function button display area, on the other hand, displays some function buttons that correspond to the icons specified by the user operation among a plurality of function buttons.
With the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-193405, the user can easily find a desired function button while getting an overview of a large number of function buttons.
However, the user is required to perform an operation to move the slider closer to the desired function (or the desired function group) even when already having decided which function (function group) to set. Thus, the operation of specifying the target display area, which involves the movement of the slider, may be troublesome for a user who has already decided which function to set. It is thus desired to make the operation of setting a function simpler.